


Diners, Drive Ins, and Dreams

by CleverLines_Unread_CleverNapkins



Series: It's Never Just One Night [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Human, Awkward Steve, Brooklyn Boys, First Dates, M/M, Natasha Is a Good Bro, Post-Serum Steve Rogers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-14
Updated: 2015-07-14
Packaged: 2018-04-09 09:32:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,718
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4343372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CleverLines_Unread_CleverNapkins/pseuds/CleverLines_Unread_CleverNapkins
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's been a while since Steve woke up naked in Bucky Barnes' bed, even if they've been talking everyday since The Day After. Steve finally works up the courage to take Bucky out for real and see if reality can measure up to his imagination.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Diners, Drive Ins, and Dreams

XxX

It takes Steve a good two days to work up the courage to text Bucky anything more than the casual greetings and thoughts about the days they had. The two had exchanged small talk and jokes, funny incidents that happened to them throughout the next week or two, but it was polite, and didn't include anything personal aside from their favorite ice creams (pistachio for Bucky and plain vanilla for Steve) after Bucky was home one Saturday night and decided to text Steve about the solo movie night he was having at his apartment; he had stocked up on so much sugar and junk food that Steve's teeth hurt just thinking about it. That night, Steve had almost offered to come over to keep him company, but he had some work to do that he had to get through before Monday, and there was no way he could do it all on Sunday.

It wasn't the first, or second, or third time he'd thought about asking Bucky to hang out; he'd actually typed out a message or two, but they'd all seemed too awkward and stunted and not... _him_. So he waited.

Steve always loved baseball - a Dodger's fan till the end - and watched every game. But sometimes, like this night, even when the game was as close as could be (deciding game of the series against the Giants, tied at three in the bottom of the eighth), Steve just couldn't keep his eyes open. 

 

_Light touches travel down the length of his arm; Steve keeps his eyes closed but he smiles, turning into the warmth draped around him. Soft lips meet his briefly before moving away much too soon for Steve's liking._

_A sound between a whimper and a moan makes its way past Steve's lips, and he opens his eyes to a chuckle by his ear. The first thing he notices is hair - there's a lot of it, rumpled and free and looking like it had been thoroughly fucked recently - the second thing he notices is eyes, and how could he not? The eyes staring up at him were the clearest blue he's ever seen outside of the Caribbean Sea, and Steve seriously doubted whether or not he could turn away from them._

_Luckily, Mr. Blue Eyes made that decision for him as he swooped in not a moment later, reclaiming Steve's lips in a slightly rougher kiss that took his breath away and left him wanting more when the other man ended this one with a sharp nip on his bottom lip. From there, the man focused his attention on Steve's neck; peppering it with kisses with just the hint of tongue licking small patches on every few, his slight morning stubble scraping against his skin._

_As Steve let out an involuntary sigh at the feeling, the man laughed and said softly in his ear, "Calm down there, Cap, neither of us is ready for round two just yet. Soon as we get some food in us though..." he let the sentence hang for a moment before pulling all the way back and shooting Steve a coy smirk._

Bucky.

 _That was Bucky, Steve realized as he watched the other man walk out of the room. It was a weird sort of deja vu. Almost as if this was how their morning should have gone, instead of the awkward sneaking out and return that actually happened. As Steve got up to follow Bucky a few minutes later, he was struck just by how_ not wrong _this whole situation felt. He almost welcomed it, actually._

_Steve's stomach did a somersault when he walked into Bucky's kitchen for the second time in his life. He stood in the doorway, at a loss of what to do or say. He ran a hand through his hair and let out a long breath. What he was looking at had taken his breath away._

_Bucky was standing at the stove, his back turned to where Steve stood. He was barefoot, and shirtless, giving Steve the perfect view of his back muscles as Bucky wielded the spatula in his non-injured hand; he looked perfectly in his element here, in his own home, his feet lightly slapping the tile floors as he shifted from foot-to-foot to the tune of some song playing softly in the background, his hair tied in a low messy bun. Everything about this scene just screamed "home" for Bucky, and spread warmth through Steve's chest._

_He coughed to announce his entrance, and Bucky turned, a smile lighting up his face as he did. "Morning," he said cheerily. He turned back to the stove when a sizzling noise erupted from the skillet._

_Steve's feet began to move, a smile growing on his own face, "Mornin' babe." He grabbed a mug from the rack and poured himself a cup of coffee before he walked towards the other man, wrapping his arms around Bucky's waist and perching his head on his shoulder. He had to stoop a little because he was a few inches taller than Bucky, but the crick in his neck was awfully familiar and comfortable, like he had been doing it for so long that his body was used to the awkward angle. "Whatcha' making?"_

_"French toast," Bucky answered, tilting his head to give Steve more access to the neck he was nibbling on._

_"Perfect," Steve crooned softly in his partner's ear. He ran the hand not holding the coffee mug down Bucky's stomach, feeling the goosebumps he elicited. It never got old, knowing he could make Bucky feel good with such simple things, "because I'm_ starving." 

_"Stevie," Bucky whined, the spatula hovering in midair as Steve's hand ran further and further down to Bucky's waistband. Steve hummed against Bucky's neck. His hand skirted the other man's dick, rubbing the sensitive areas with the fuzz of his sweatpants, knowing there was nothing between the sweats and skin. "Stevie, come on," Bucky urged, his hips canting up in the slightest._

_"What's that, baby?" Steve bit down on the nape of Bucky's neck, which seemed to be the last straw; Bucky put down the spatula, spinning the dial to turn off the flame on the stove, and turned around in a few smooth motions. Where Steve's hands used to be on his hips, now they were positioned on his ass - a twist Steve was in no way upset about._

_Bucky put his hands on either side of Steve's face, scratched by the slight morning stubble that was there, and dragged up into his blonde hair. Steve's head tilted back the slightest bit at the feeling and unconsciously bit his lip when the strong hands tightened around the thick strands and pulled._

_Their mouths met in an urgent and intense kiss filled with hair pulling and grabbing at whatever slight clothing the two had slept in. Steve could feel Bucky's cock digging into his thigh, which only fueled his own erection that was steadily growing; in the back of his mind, Steve thought that he should be embarrassed by how easily he was aroused by the man in front of him, but there was something just so inherently_ right _about the whole thing that he couldn't make himself care all that much._

_Feeling brave, Steve pulled away from the kiss, leaning their foreheads together and dodging Bucky's attempts to reconnect their mouths. His breath coming in harsh pants so that every word he spoke was heavy and low, "What was that about waiting for breakfast again?"_

_The icy blue eyes staring back at him rolled and Bucky chuckled, "Fuck you, Rogers, and fuck breakfast." His eyes got intense, heat filling them as his eyes gave Steve a slow once over. "Ding ding: Round two."_

Steve's eyes opened slowly. His neck hurt from where it had been awkwardly bent over the back of the couch and his body felt weirdly cold, missing the phantom warmth that was present in his dream. His television was still on, a few announcers recapping the game that he had been previously watching, but he couldn't make himself care about who had won, not when that dream had felt so real. It had felt so real, in fact, that he could feel the ache of disappointment in his chest that it hadn't been. 

As he sat with his head in his hands, trying to get himself back to normal, there was a startling beep from between the couch cushions. His phone had fallen out of his pocket during his nap and had fallen between the two seat cushions; now, he pulled it out, seeing there was a New Text message flashing. It was a reminder, the kind the cell gives off after a minute or two if the message isn't opened right away. 

The text was a simple one, one he gets a few times a day. 

**You'd think I'd grow out of it, but the witch from Wizard of Oz still scares the crap outta me every time**

Bucky. The text was from Bucky, and even though it was the simplest message in the world, Steve hated it. He hated only getting to know the other man in these little mundane bits and pieces. Either he wanted to be there with Bucky while he got freaked out by the decades old movie, or he didn't want to know these things at all. 

It was in that moment that Steve Rogers made a choice. 

He scooped up the phone from where he had set it down onto the table after reading the message and hit Reply. 

**Wanna get dinner with me sometime?**

As soon as he hit Send, his heart started pounding. He had not thought this through enough, and he couldn't take it back now. 

The reply was almost instant, the phone vibrating in Steve's hand so suddenly that he almost dropped it. 

**From Bucky**  
_I'd love to. Gimme the time/place and I'll be there_

**To Bucky**  
_No way, I'll swing by your place Thursday at 7 to pick you up. We'll make a night of it._

**From Bucky**  
_Sounds perfect. See ya then, Cap_

That night, Steve went to bed with a smile on his face at just the thought of Thursday. He had a lot of planning to do, but if he played his cards right, his dream may just become a reality someday.

XxX

Natasha opened the door to Steve's apartment and had to check the door number twice. Yup, it was 236 B, but what faced Natasha was not the usual clean and kept apartment: there were at least four pairs of shoes scattered haphazardly in front of the doors - which any lesser woman would have tripped over when she entered, but Nat was able to sidestep them gracefully - lines of shirts thrown over the kitchen chairs and the back of the sofa, and worst of all, when Natasha walked passed the bathroom on her way to find Steve, she walked through a cloud of at least four different colognes that assaulted her senses and forced itself down her throat. 

She coughed a few times, trying to dislodged the offending mixture, and that's when Steve arrived. He walked out of his bedroom looking just like his apartment did: his hair half combed, the other half sticking straight up, a light blue button down hanging off his shoulders, stopped from falling only by the tie knotted around his neck. As expected, he did not wear shoes, probably because they were all strewn across the floor, but he wore cotton socks, visible only because his one jean pant leg was rolled up above the ankle. 

It was the most disorderly Natasha had ever seen Steve before two in the morning. 

"Nat!" he called, coming over and grabbing her hand and guiding her into his room with him. 

Natasha followed, waving a hand in front of her face to disperse the remaining cologne. "Jesus, Steve, what's got your panties all up in a twist?"

"What's the matter, she asks," Steve mutters darkly. "Oh, nothing, Natasha, just the fact that I have to go pick up Bucky in less than an hour and I apparently have not gone shopping since 1945 because I do not have any clothes for this." Steve paced back and forth across the room twice before realizing his shirt was buttoned incorrectly and ripping it off violently. 

It was a testament to Natasha as well as her and Steve's friendship that Natasha was not affected by her friend's half-nakedness. 

"You're picking up Bucky," she said. It wasn't a question, just a statement of fact, as if she needed to hear herself say it in order to understand it. 

Steve rolled his eyes, "If you even try to say 'I told you so' in any language, I'm canceling." He turned away, balling up the shirt and throwing it in a growing pile of others in the corner of the room before making his way back to the dresser. The drawer was pulled out almost off of its hinges, various clothes piled on top and spilling over, but still Cap rummaged through the sea of fabric as if he was a dog digging up a bone. 

The red head watched for a moment before she couldn't stand to see her friend like this anymore; she fired off a low curse in Russian before hip checking Steve out of the way. "Move over, Shortstop, I'm taking over here. Go take a Valium or something while I try to find something that hasn't been thrown to the floor and wrinkled beyond a five-second repair." She picked up a gray T-shirt from the floor by her foot with two fingers: fuzz hung from the side where the hem was pushed against countless dust-bunnies under the dresser and one sleeve was inside-out. "It may take a while - might want to double up on that Valium." 

 

XxX

 

In the end, it didn't take Natasha nearly as long to come up with an outfit. It had started with a few questions shouted from Steve's bedroom to the kitchen (Steve was banned from entering the bedroom after he tried to intervene for second time) about what the couple was doing, how fancy the restaurant was, what food Steve was going to eat, if Bucky had any pets, and ended with Steve changing in the bathroom while Natasha tried her best to straighten up the apartment. 

"Nat!" Steve called for the fourth time since he had started changing, "You don't have to clean - I'll do it when I get home later!" 

A pile of shoes were dropped unceremoniously into a basket as Natasha answered, "And what if Bucky wants to come back here after your date, huh? S'Your first impression going to be that you're a slob who can't dress himself? 'Cause I gotta say, that'll totally ruin the mood." 

Just like she knew the comment would, Steve walked into the room with rose-pink ears and his head angled downward in just the right way to make him look adorable - especially in the outfit Nat had pulled together. Tight-fitting jeans around the thighs paired with a scoop neck white T-shirt under a blue blazer and dark sneakers looked impeccable on him, and if he played his cards right and didn't freak out on his date too much, Natasha's "what if" became a definite reality. 

Natasha let out a low whistle, "If I hadn't met Clint first...." 

Steve laughed, shoving his hands in his pocket, "Thanks, Nat - for everything." 

The comment brought a smile to her face. "Alright, Cap," she said, "Show time."

 

XxX

 

The night went by much too quickly for Steve's taste.

It seemed like only three minutes ago that he was standing outside Bucky's apartment with his eyes closed and palms sweating against the bouquet of flowers held tightly in his hands as he waited for the other man to answer. Clint would have died laughing if he had known that Steve had walked four blocks out of his way to find the perfect set of flowers for another man, but Steve was raised by a woman who taught him to never arrive empty handed to a date or party. 

Luckily, Bucky had thought it was charming and went immediately to find some sort of vase to hold them in, giving Steve ample time to figure out how to breath again; Bucky looked breathtaking with his hair slicked almost all the way back, light khaki pants and a dark sweater that complimented his darker complexion perfectly. When they first started walking, Steve wasn't sure that they would even make it out of the building - he was so nervous to say the wrong thing that he ended up saying nothing, leading to a three floor elevator ride in silence. Bucky exited the small inclosed space first, allowing Steve the opportunity to have the physical face palm he had been thinking about for the past fifteen minutes. 

But once the two were out in the fresh air, the conversation flowed easier - after Bucky initiated it, of course, but Steve didn't mind so much. They talked about inconsequential things on the walk to the restaurant: the weather, the city, their friends, even the way they met, which they both had a good laugh over, and it made the stroll fun to a point that they were both a little disappointed it was over so soon when they arrived. By walking through the ornate rotating glass doors, they knew they're conversations would be quieted, that Steve's laugh would not come out as unhindered and real, that they'd be interrupted by waiters, and that Bucky would look around shyly before he leaned in to say that he's glad that Steve forgot his pants that morning that felt like so long ago.

The waiter came over, hands full of pristine white plates that he carefully set down in front of each man with a smile as he recited the order to show that he was indeed good at his job before walking away quickly to do it all again ten feet to the left. It took a solid two minutes, wherein both men looked at their plates, forks poised over the food inside, unsure of where to start. 

"I'm going to be brutally honest here, Cap," Bucky said, staring down at his plate, "I have no fuckin' clue what I'm supposed to be eating." 

Steve stared at his date before bursting out in such laughter that the other three tables around them stopped to stare. He tried to apologize for the disruption, but he couldn't curb the laughs enough, throwing up a hand in a faux wave and shaking his head slightly to try and ease the glares he was receiving. 

Both men had ordered the special of the day, and while the plates that the meal came in was twice the size of Steve's face, the actual food served could fit in one hand. Not only that, there was no way of knowing what was actually in the meal: there was a thin slice of meat on a bed of multi-colored lettuce and topped with a flower of garnish; surrounding the pile of lettuce were drops of sauce placed in strategic positions around the outside of the plate (Steve determined it was so that the plate looked like there was more on it). It was one of the most expensive drops of food Steve had paid for in a while. 

"I mean, c'mon, Buck, how uncultured can you be?" he threw out, watching Bucky's face intently. When there was a slight pause between Steve's sentences, he could see the other man's face fall just the slightest. "Obviously, this middle piece is the meat that we eat, because the bunnies that come out later and munch on this.... lettuce-y, flower-y... part don't eat meat." 

Bucky's face lit up. "Ah, of course," he said excitedly, "how could I forget the bunnies! It's the best part of the meal." Steve chuckled, taking a sip of his drink. Bucky leaned in, "Y'know, I don't need these fancy restaurants, Steve - I'm a simple man. Grew up in Brooklyn on burgers and fries and I don't forget my roots easily." 

Steve smirked, also leaning in, "Well, in that case, Brooklyn Boy, I know a diner about two blocks from here, whaddya say?" 

"What are we waiting for?"

 

XxX

 

The sun was just rising when Natasha opened the door to Steve's apartment, arms laden with coffee and baked goods from the bakery on the way from her own home. 

"Stevie!" she called in a high-pitched voice as she deposited her haul on the coffee table. The majority of available space on the table was covered in various pastries and donuts when Steve finally emerged from his room, hair fluffy but smiling. 

"Mornin', Nat," he said, eyeing the food. "Are we feeding the whole building today or what?"

She shot him a coy smile, "Well I wasn't sure if we'd be two or three this morning so I had to be prepared for anything." 

Picking out a plain glazed donut, Steve rolled his eyes, "Nothing happened last night." 

"You wouldn't lie to me, Stevie, would you?" She made a face at him that would have most mortal men spilling every secret they ever had just to make the puppy dog eyes stop. 

But, after years of friendship and becoming extremely familiar with the look, Steve had built up a kind of immunity. He laughed, "Of course I would." She scowled. "But in this instance, I'm being honest. We went to that diner that makes the mean chowder and just talked." 

"A _diner_? What happened to the black-tie affair crap you planned out?" 

Steve nodded, polishing off the rest of his breakfast, "Yeah, we tried the whole fancy thing at first, but turns out we're not really good at it." 

Natasha smiled at that, unwrapping an impressive looking danish delicately, "Must be the Brooklyn in you both. I've got a good feeling about this, Cap."

At that, Steve paused, hand hovering over a salt bagel that was still warm from the store. Slowly, he lowered his hand back to his side, giving a soft look at his shoes. "Yeah," he said, looking up into the eyes of his friend, "I do too." 

XxX

**Author's Note:**

> Steve's date wardrobe inspired by http://www.gq.com/story/chris-evans-gq-july-2011-cover-story


End file.
